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Kerr admits to ‘reality’ of low-energy games as Warriors defend title

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OAKLAND – The Warriors were just body slammed by the Toronto Raptors at home. The Raptors didn’t have their best player in Kawhi Leonard and the Warriors added Stephen Curry and Draymond Green since the two teams last played in a thrilling 131-128 Raptors overtime win. Tonight was a hapless, disjointed performance from the Warriors in a 113-93 loss.

But, tonight is also, in the grand scheme of things, just another regular-season loss and leaves the Warriors (19-10) still in second place in the Western Conference. Steve Kerr is playing the long game and both acknowledged the difficulty of motivating his players each note, and took responsibility for the abyss of energy.

“It was one of those nights where you would hope that we’d be more engaged and more energetic playing against this team, but we didn’t bring it and I’ve got to do a better job preparing them to play and getting them ready to get after it,” Kerr said.

The fifth-year head coach is the owner of eight championship rings (five as a player, three as a coach) and knows there’s an ebb and flow to each season. He pointed to “a different vibe” in this year of the Warriors’ dynasty compared to teams like the Raptors and Milwaukee Bucks.

“I can’t really explain it other than we’re now in a place where we’re defending a title and defending sort of a mantle that we’ve had for several years and it’s a different vibe, it’s a different feeling than when you’re on the climb than like Toronto is, like Milwaukee is, like we were a few years ago,” Kerr said. “It’s a different feeling, it’s a different vibe. It’s harder to get up for each game. So there are certain nights where you can just feel it, where you don’t have that energy. And if you’ve played in the NBA, if you’ve coached in this league, you understand it. If you’ve followed it closely, as you have, you understand that. It’s not an excuse, it’s just reality. We did not bring the required energy.”

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